Why no negative emojis/reactions?

[LifeInAHamsterWheel]

All the emojis are positive, agreeing with the post etc. Why can't there be a thumbs-down one? Personally I'd make great use of a 💩 one but that might be a bridge too far!!

You can put that emoji in a post perfectly well, with a response describing why, so debating like a normal person.
Negative reactions without any explanation are just an unpleasant way of making someone's day less good and who really wants that?

I agree with @Pascha . I get the desire but in reality it would be sad.

Yes, ITA, there's already a problem with people misusing the 'laugh' reaction for mockery, and to compound the problem it can be done anonymously. There's another thread about that on this board so won't rehash it further here.

I agree!

I can and do debate "like a normal person" ! But sometimes I don't want to post, and a quick reaction is all that's needed, which I presume is what the emoji option is for? But I accept that some people might be upset to have a number of 'negative' reactions to their post, I hadn't thought of it like that.

Hi @LifeInAHamsterWheel,

Thanks for posting. Yes, as others said, when we introduced the emojis it was obviously something that came up and we felt it might just be 'too' negative and also just a bit pointless to have 'dislikes' or that kind of thing. While we encourage free speech and debate, we always ask people to do so in a polite and civil way and we just felt that those single negative emojis wouldn't be in that spirit of friendly debate and would probably land badly. Whereas, with even a short one-sentence reply it's possible to get over that more positive way of disagreeing and it's clear a poster has taken the time to compose something, which instantly makes it more palatable and encourages further discussion.

Hope that explains things a bit further anyway.

The days of free speech and debate are long gone from here.

Definitely no dislike buttons please. It could only lead to people feeling attacked. And writing tit for tat personal posts, basically making people meaner and more argumentative than they are already.